


What Itachi Did

by JustAnotherBlonde



Series: A Lifetime of Moments [11]
Category: Naruto
Genre: Alternate Universe - Art School, Alternate Universe - College/University, Climbing club, Did Itachi really murder his family?, M/M, Rock Climbing, Sasuke thinks so, The court did not
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-30
Updated: 2020-09-30
Packaged: 2021-03-08 04:14:31
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,356
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26559547
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/JustAnotherBlonde/pseuds/JustAnotherBlonde
Summary: Some of the Dawn Climbers take a day trip, where Deidara learns what Itachi did and why Itachi's younger brother is "coming for him."
Relationships: Deidara/Sasori (Naruto)
Series: A Lifetime of Moments [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1878778
Comments: 2
Kudos: 13





	What Itachi Did

**Author's Note:**

> i guess if you have questions about climbing terminology, ask me? this should read easily to climbers, but i may not have explained things well enough for non-climbers… 
> 
> i think in the anime it’s a 5 year gap between Itachi and Sasuke, but for my fic it’s 10 years. Itachi is 27-28, and Sasuke is 18 when he comes to uni

_August already…_ Sasori thought as he opened his eyes to the late morning sun. _Summer’s almost over._ He drew a deep breath, feeling the weight of Deidara’s arm across his chest, savoring this moment. This was how they woke up nearly every morning now: a tangle of limbs, pressed close. Deidara burrowed closer, stirring awake.

“Don’t get up yet…” Deidara mumbled. “Mn.”

“I won’t,” Sasori whispered into Deidara’s hair. He moved his arm underneath Deidara’s neck, turning so that he could face him. He closed his eyes and started to drift off again.

“You’re so soft and perfect, mn.”

Pulled from half-slumber by this remark, Sasori laughed. “You’re sleep-talking,” he murmured.

Deidara looked up at him, their eyes inches apart. “I’m awake, mn!”

In reply, Sasori kissed him slowly. It had become so much easier over the past two months to forget everything else and just be with Deidara. It was like his therapist had said: he needed time to readjust, reacclimatize himself to physical intimacy. The morning of Deidara’s last exhibition had been somewhat of a setback, so these days they took things incrementally slower, starting small with kisses and cuddling. He was becoming more comfortable with the touch of his skin against Deidara’s skin: this morning they were both shirtless beneath the covers.

He kissed Deidara with an open mouth, parting Deidara’s lips with his tongue; Deidara’s body went limp, then pressed closer.

“I could stay in bed like this forever, mn,” Deidara said when they came up for air.

“Mm.” Sasori had closed his eyes again. He was warm and content with Deidara’s head on his chest. Deidara nuzzled close.

“I can hear your heart,” he murmured. “Mn.”

Sasori fell into a snooze.

*

He woke with a start. “What time are we supposed to meet Itachi and Tobi to go hiking today?” he asked as he sat up, spilling Deidara off his chest.

Deidara rolled over and wrapped the covers around himself. “Like noon or something, mn.”

“It’s already 11:30.”

“Fuck!”

They both scrambled out of bed. Deidara headed to the wardrobe while Sasori made a beeline for the bathroom, hoping to squeeze in a quick shower.

“What do we need to bring again?” Sasori asked, poking his head out the bathroom door.

“Good thing we did the _onigiri_ last night, mn,” Deidara said, halfway into a t-shirt. “Itachi said we might be able to make it to one of the crags along the trail so I’m bringing my climbing shoes and harness; you can do what you like.”

“Right. I might just pack a book…”

“Come on, bring your shoes at least! Mn.”

“All right, fine… See if you can find them in the box by the bed…”

*

They ran the 20-minute walk to the train station. It was an unusually cloudy day for summer: the flat sheet of white cloud that covered the sky made it seem as if they were inside a sketchbook. As they approached the station, the Victorian architecture looked somber in this pale sunlight. Deidara almost stopped to take a photo but Sasori pulled him onward, mocking his inability to uphold his own belief in transient beauty.

Tobi and Itachi stood together outside. Kisame would be meeting them in town: he said he wanted to cycle the 60 kilometer distance. Both of the dark-haired Uchihas carried small rucksacks, and Itachi’s had a coil of dynamic rope clipped to it.

“Ah! They’re holding hands!” Tobi exclaimed as soon as he spotted Sasori and Deidara.

Itachi caught Sasori’s gaze and nodded, the corner of his mouth turned up in a smile. He didn’t say anything but Sasori understood the look: he could see Itachi’s happiness in the way his eyes softened.

_I wish you could find someone like this, Itachi-san_ , Sasori thought.

“Are you gonna hold hands all day, _senpai_?”

“Fuck off, Tobi, mn,” Deidara retorted, releasing Sasori’s hand to wrestle Tobi into a headlock.

“Ow, ow!” Tobi whined. “I give up!”

“Let him go, Deidara,” Itachi growled. “The train leaves in ten, let’s get going. You two were supposed to be here at twelve…”

“Who put you in charge? Mn,” Deidara said with his hands on his hips. “I don’t—”

“Leave it,” Sasori warned. “We should have got up earlier. Sorry…”

“Never mind,” Itachi replied. “But we really do need to go.”

They hurried into the train station and queued to buy tickets.

“Did you bring lunch, Sasori-danna?” Tobi asked while they waited. He bounced on his heels, his spiky black hair flopping up and down.

Sasori nodded. “Deidara helped roll the _onigiri_. You can force him to eat the ugliest ones.”

Deidara shoved Sasori playfully. “Ugly! None of my sculptures are ugly. Just because I didn’t stick to the traditional form—”

“They aren’t rigged to explode, are they, Deidara-san?” Itachi murmured, eyes glinting.

“Yours are…mn,” Deidara shot back. Itachi wrinkled his nose—it was one of his strange ways of smiling.

Tickets purchased, they hurried to board the train. They found four seats facing each other. Itachi took one of the window seats, and Deidara ended up opposite him. Sasori hefted their bags onto the overhead rack and sat heavily into his seat beside Deidara.

“I wish the weather was better…” Sasori fretted.

“It’s better like this,” Itachi replied. “If it were sunny we’d all get burnt.” He looked pointedly at Deidara’s exposed arms and the burn marks that ran up and down them.

Deidara narrowed his eyes and made a face at him. “Fuck you, too, mn.”

“Somebody piss in your coffee this morning, Deidara?” Itachi asked, nonchalantly gazing out the window as the train began to move.

“Well, I didn’t _get_ —”

Sasori grabbed Deidara’s hand. Their fingers laced together and he gave Deidara’s hand a squeeze. Deidara looked at him. _Behave,_ Sasori’s look seemed to say. Deidara sighed and rolled his eyes. _Fine._

“Sorry, I haven’t _had_ any coffee yet. Must be why, mn,” Deidara replied, looking out the window at the rolling scenery. Then he grinned wickedly at Itachi. _Sorry, darling, I can’t leave him alone._ “Your hair looks cute today, did you finally wash it?”

Itachi closed his eyes and took a breath. His self-control was godlike. He chose the tactic which aggravated Deidara the most: ignoring him and talking to Sasori.

“Sasori-danna, have you finished reading the book I lent you?”

“I’m still working through the last few chapters,” Sasori replied, squeezing Deidara’s hand again and shooting him a sympathetic look. Deidara fumed. “Some of the theories are rather interesting. I end up sitting there contemplating the applications.”

Itachi nodded. “I’d hoped it would give you something to think about.”

“Which book, Itachi-san?” Tobi cut in.

“You wouldn’t like it, Tobi, it’s not a manga featuring large-breasted women,” Deidara snapped. “It’s about design.”

“Oh?” Itachi voiced his surprise. “Deidara-san, are you reading it too?”

“Mm.” Deidara pouted at the fields outside the window.

“What do you think?” Itachi sounded genuinely interested.

“I don’t agree with the author about how to use visual hierarchy, mn,” Deidara replied. “I mean, obviously you want to emphasise certain parts of your piece, but you can’t start creating with that in mind. Especially when you’re working with sculpture—the materials end up influencing the ultimate form, mn.”

“Ah, no, you see, that’s not what she’s trying to say,” Itachi countered. He leaned forward in his seat. “Back me up on this, Sasori-danna…”

*

Forty minutes later, as the train pulled into the station, Tobi was snoring with abandon while Deidara and Itachi continued their heated debate about visual hierarchy. Sasori would chime in every once in a while, diplomatically refusing to agree with either of them. He had his own theories, which occasionally the other two would shut up and listen to, when they remembered that Sasori had been studying art a good deal longer than they had.

Deidara kicked Tobi hard in the shins.

“Wake up, buttercup! Mn.”

Tobi bolted upright. “Don’t do it!” he shouted, then blinked around, as if he wasn’t sure where he was.

“What was that, Tobi?” Itachi said as he pulled his rucksack onto his back.

The younger Uchiha rubbed the back of his neck bashfully.

“Bad dream, I guess…” he said, looking up at his cousin. Itachi’s expression was unreadable.

“Best forget about it,” Itachi murmured. He peered out the window. “Kisame’s already here,” he said, speaking louder.

It was an older station, one of the open-air ones with a platform on either side of the tracks and a pedestrian bridge to cross from one side to the other. Kisame stood just outside the gate with his bicycle and a slim rucksack. His hair was sticking out of his helmet at odd angles.

“Where will you leave your bike?” Itachi said by way of greeting. Their friendship didn’t seem to be based on pleasantries. It worked for them.

“There’s a bike shed here at the station. I only just got here, figured I’d see if it was your train coming in before I parked up.”

Itachi nodded.

“Kisameh!” Tobi shouted as he bounced over. He raised his hand for a high-five. Kisame raised his as well, but without even looking at Tobi, faked him out and mussed up his hair instead.

Deidara smirked at this and chased after Tobi to goad him further. Sasori turned his attention to Itachi and Kisame, who were pulling out the map to plan their route, laying it across Kisame’s handlebars.

“I’m hoping we can scout out this area for a Dawn trip,” Itachi was saying. He looked up at Sasori as he approached. “I’ve heard good things about the crags up this way, but it’s a bit of a trek to get there, not sure if it’s worth driving all the way out here for a whole weekend…”

*

Half an hour later, they were walking down a wide, well-kept lane on their way to the foot of the hills. The weather had not changed much from the weather in the city, but weak rays of sunlight were attempting to poke through the white mantle. Kisame walked ahead of everyone, eager to reach the crag. Deidara and Tobi were just behind him while Sasori and Itachi walked slowly at the back. No breeze whispered through the young forest which grew on either path, but it was far from silent as Deidara and Tobi continued to bicker and roughhouse. The current topic was Tobi’s lack of girlfriend.

“I’m just saying if you wore better-fitting clothes you’d—”

“I’m _not_ letting you dress me! You’ll end up painting my nails.”

“Straight men can paint their nails! Mn.” Deidara retorted. “Who’s that singer guy who does it?”

“You mean from the _heavy metal band_?”

“You don’t need to paint them anyway, just keep them clean. Nobody—men, women, children and potential girlfriends included—wants to see all that fungus you’ve got growing in there, mn.”

Sasori turned to Itachi just as they passed into a stretch of sunlight. Itachi squinted in this sudden brightness. Despite how much time he spent climbing outdoors over the summer, his face was pale, made paler in this wan light.

“I heard Sasuke is coming to our university in the fall,” Sasori began. “Will he be in the art department?”

Itachi exhaled. “No, he’s studying business. I guess. We’re not close.”

“You say that every time somebody mentions Sasuke,” Sasori retorted. He studied Itachi’s face closely. “He’s your little brother. I know you track him like a hawk. At least in front of me, stop pretending you don’t care about him.”

“He stopped being my responsibility after I left home. And he hates me: he grew up without parents because of me. You know the story.”

“I know what I heard. That story stayed in the news for months. ‘Teenage experimentation goes too far,’ the headline said. ‘Parents and seven others caught in the blast.’ But it was an accident, Itachi. I believe that.”

Checking that none of the others were near enough to overhear, Itachi murmured: “That’s not what our family believed. After I finished my term in juvie, they ran me out of town. And Sasuke is hell-bent on revenge. He could have gone to university anywhere: he had the grades. But he’s coming here, looking for me.”

Sasori narrowed his eyes. “Are you afraid of him?” he asked in a low voice.

Itachi stared at the ground in front of them, but his eyes were not focused there. They seemed to be seeing something far, far away.

“No, I’m ready.”

*

They stopped for lunch at a rest area with a broad picnic table and benches. Sasori set his rucksack down on the table and began pulling out Tupperware boxes.

“Woah, you made a lot!” Tobi exclaimed.

Dozens of _onigiri_ lined the boxes, the rice glistening invitingly. Deidara’s were indeed strange, designed like his sculptures: oddly-shaped birds and insects. Sasori’s, keeping with tradition, were all uniform rounded triangles. They had also packed some cut fruit and Kisame surprised them all by pulling a package of frosted biscuits out of his rucksack.

“They were on sale…” he muttered.

Silence settled around the table as they ate. Tobi polished off three _onigiri_ and most of the biscuits, declaring himself “stuffed” before the others had finished their second rice ball.

“I heard you talking about Sasuke earlier,” Tobi said after thanking Sasori for the meal. An icy silence fell around the table as Itachi, Sasori and Kisame exchanged looks. Deidara was oblivious.

“Who’s Sasuke?” he asked. “Ex-boyfriend?”

Tobi laughed sharply. “No, he’s another Uchiha. Itachi’s little brother. He’s coming to our uni next month, right, Itachi?”

Itachi pursed his lips. “Why are you asking me? You know it’s true, Tobi; you’re the one who told Sasori. I don’t know what game you’re playing…”

“I’m not playing a game, Itachi,” Tobi said with a shrug. His demeanor had changed: he seemed calmer, more calculating; his playfulness took on an almost malicious edge. “So I told Sasori. What’s the harm?”

“Nobody needs to know Sasuke is coming, Tobi,” Itachi said tensely. “Let me handle him on my own.”

“Don’t you want to know what he said to me? He said he was going to—”

“Watch it!” Itachi interrupted, eyes flashing. “I’m not going to ask you twice, Tobi: shut the fuck up.”

“Is that a threat?” Tobi stood slowly, pacing away with his eyes locked on Itachi.

“Do I frighten you?” Itachi said in a low voice, fixing an intense gaze on Tobi.

“What the _hell_ is going on, mn?” Deidara interjected. He looked from Itachi to Tobi, tension buzzing in the air like a lightning storm was drawing near.

“Maybe Sasuke is right about you,” Tobi said. He hadn’t taken his eyes off Itachi. “Maybe it wasn’t an accident.”

Itachi said nothing.

“What _the hell_ are you talking about? Mn!” Deidara repeated. He looked at Sasori, who shook his head, and Kisame who was pointedly ignoring everyone. He looked at Itachi: unreadable, and finally Tobi, hands by his sides, staring down Itachi.

“I was the one who had to live with it all, after you left,” Tobi said in a tense, quiet voice. “Sasuke is more like a brother to me than he is to you. He told me what you said about proving yourself.”

“Judge for yourself. The evidence is freely available,” Itachi murmured. His eyes were staring somewhere far away again. “I have no regrets.”

“WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU TALKING ABOUT?!” Deidara shouted as he slammed his hands on the table and stood. “Stop fucking ignoring me, mn!”

“Itachi killed his parents,” Tobi said, waving his hand impatiently.

Deidara was stunned into a brief silence. He staggered backwards. When he found his voice again he exclaimed:

“Why _the fuck_ aren’t you in jail? Mn.”

“It was an accident,” Sasori interjected, the words rushing out of him. “The story was all over the news. There was an explosion a factory his parents’ owned. The report said Itachi had been… experimenting with chemicals in a back room and something went wrong. The explosion killed his parents and several factory workers, all family members, but in the end, the court ruled it an accident.”

This hit home with Deidara harder than he thought it would. He looked Itachi slowly up and down.

“You were making a bomb? Why?”

Itachi maintained his silence.

“Sasuke told me you killed them on purpose,” Tobi said. “I know you didn’t agree with your father’s—”

Kisame stood, snatching up the dirty tissues and rubbish. “Let’s get to the crag before we lose any more of the daylight,” he said curtly. “This shit is water under the bridge now.”

Itachi looked at Kisame, face impassive. Wordlessly, he began packing up the boxes.

Tobi moved to help. He muttered to Itachi: “It is _not_ water under the bridge to Sasuke. He’s coming for you.”

The look in Itachi’s strangely-colored eyes was cold and fathomless. “I know.”

*

Deidara unclipped himself from the end of the rope and passed the karabiner to Tobi. Kisame was belaying and Itachi was off exploring, nowhere in sight. A bit of weak sunlight peeked through the clouds, illuminating the 100-meter-wide face of pale gray limestone. They had set up their day-camp in a shaded dell at the foot of the cliff. Sasori lay in a hammock hung between two trees reading his book. After leading the first route, Itachi had excused himself to search for the large quarry indicated on the map nearby that he said might have more routes. Deidara had attacked the climb next, determined to do it better than Itachi had. Now his body buzzed with that post-climb glow, blood pumping to his forearms and calves, his fingertips thrumming.

After stepping out of his harness and tossing it onto his bag, Deidara sank down to the ground beside Sasori. He reached for Sasori’s hand and played with interlacing their fingers for a moment before leveling a steady gaze at him.

“Tell me more about Itachi and his parents, mn.”

Sasori sighed. “It’s not my story to tell. Why don’t you just look it up yourself online? I don’t know any more than what the reports say. He doesn’t talk about it.”

“That’s some dark shit,” Deidara said, nodding. “I mean, I hate my parents, but I could never try to blow them up. There’s no way I could get it to look like an accident. I’d go to jail for sure, mn.”

“Itachi didn’t kill them on purpose,” Sasori corrected gently. “As it is, you’ll probably end up in jail someday just for one of your ‘normal’ exhibitions, my love.” He looked down at Deidara mischievously and squeezed his hand.

“Ha.”

“Jokes aside, I’m worried about him. What if Sasuke has something reckless planned?”

Deidara shrugged. “We’ll just have to wait and see, mn. It’s not really _our_ problem, is it?

Sasori looked at him sharply, eyes dark. He sat up, swinging his legs out of the hammock and planting them on the ground beside Deidara.

“After everything he did for me over the years, you’re damn right it’s our problem, Dei. I owe him my life.”

This statement was difficult for Deidara to take seriously. “You’re not in a fairytale,” he grinned. “You work in a university art department. You make puppets. Itachi’s a painter. There’s not gonna be some big battle to save Itachi’s life or anything like that, mn.”

Hearing it put like that, Sasori grinned sheepishly. It did sound silly. “You’re right, of course.”

_Besides_ , Deidara thought to himself, _Mr. Perfect is more than capable of handling himself in a fight, if what I saw that first night I met him is anything to go by._ Deidara wrestled that memory back down into the dark, dank mind-cellar where he’d locked it away: His hatred for Itachi originated in the events that had played out one sweaty summer night before he started uni, but he still found the story too painfully embarrassing to admit to Sasori. The lie about envying Itachi’s climbing expertise allowed him to channel his anger without having to ever confess that he knew what Itachi’s lips tasted like.

**Author's Note:**

> i just wanna note that i _will_ come back to Deidara's memory of meeting Itachi that ~fateful~ night (and trust me darlings, you'll get it in full!), but not for another couple stories… sorry for the tease!


End file.
